When I was invited to take part in the A Crafty Christmas campaign, you better believe I jumped at the chance. Anybody who wants to kick start festivities before December is even here is a friend of mine, so I set about creating something super simple that would be easy to recreate at home and wouldn’t cost an arm and leg to make.
Along the way, I had a bit of an altercation with a Christmas tree made of cupcakes (aka massive disaster) so I went back to the drawing board and that’s when my Reindeer Christmas Cupcakes were born…
Here’s what you’ll need: (Makes 18 cupcakes)
- 1 Betty Crocker Red Velvet cake mix
- 200ml water
- 105ml vegetable oil
- 3 medium eggs
- 18 festive cake cases
- 2 large bars of chocolate
- 20 red sweets (2 for eating on the job, duh)
- 36 edible eyes (you can easily make these yourself if you can’t find any)
- 36 sweet pretzels
- Edible gold glitter spray (optional)
(To continue along the theme of keeping this super affordable and easy to follow, I chose to use a packet cake mix but if you fancy whopping my ass in the kitchen-based Christmas craft department, feel free to use your own red velvet sponge recipe in place of the box mix)
Here’s what you need to do:
- Preheat your oven to 200°c (gas mark 6).
- Line your baking tray with cases.
- Put your red velvet mix, water, eggs and oil into a large mixing bowl.
- Mix on low speed for 1 minute until combined.
- Mix on medium-high speed for another 2 minutes.
- Pour into cake cases.
- Cook for 15-25 minutes (checking as you go)
Top tip No.1: Use a cocktail stick down the centre of the tallest cake and when it comes out dry, that’s when the cake is cooked!
Top tip No.2: Slice the tops of your cakes off so that the surface is flat for you to work on.
- Leave the cakes to cool for a good 30-45 minutes.
- Lay out your pretzels and spray evenly with edible glitter.
- Melt your chocolate in the microwave OR using a double boiler.
- Spoon a generous layer over each cupcake and smooth with the back of the spoon.
- Pop your edible eyes into place.
- Give your deers their shiny red noses.
- Now pop your pretzel antlers into place.
- Leave in a cool place until the chocolate has set and everything is securely in place.
Now all that’s left to do is to tuck into your edible Christmas crafts! If you fancy seeing what other people have been doing to DIY their festive prep this year, click right here.
*This is a collaborative post as part of the Provident ‘A Crafty Christmas’ campaign but all words and images are my very own.
I am soooooo saving this post to make these for Christmas!! They are absolutely adorable and they look SO delicious!
Haha thank you!! Make sure you send me some snaps if you do 🙂